Saturday, November 29, 2014

I was in Bangladesh recently visiting my relatives and
friends. The air flight from Philadelphia was long via the Qatar Airways. Previously,
like many airlines Qatar Airways did not have a direct flight out of Philadelphia.
Now it does, which allowed me to avoid traveling to nearby JFK airport in NY or
Dulles airport in Washington D.C. to catch the flight.

The flight from Philadelphia to Doha in late October was
half-full and I was able to quickly spot some open row seats, and took
advantage of one such row in the middle to rest better there than the seat I
was assigned to. The flight entertainment system with access to many latest
movies was great, and so were the foods served. The flight attendants were
highly professional and very courteous. The toilets were clean and tidy.

I had bought the ticket on-line. Unfortunately, it required
a stop-over at Qatar’s capital Doha for more than 12 hours. Per rules
established by the airlines industry, I assumed that the Qatar Airways would
provide a hotel to take rest, and that was the impression given to me by the
Qatar Airways counter lady while checking in Philadelphia airport. However,
after nearly 14 hours of non-stop flight to Doha, at the transfer deck I was
informed that I had a promotional ticket and as such no such hotel
accommodation would be provided to me. I felt cheated. But what to do other
than pass the time in the airport lounge given the fact that one needs a visa to
get out and then pay a hefty hotel fee for less than half a day of stay! No
food voucher was issued either by the airlines, which meant one has to buy food
from any of the restaurants. As expected, the prices there were unusually
expensive.

Doha airport is one of the most modern airports in the world.
It is top of the class in terms of cleanliness and ample of facilities it
provides for its passengers. There are many Quiet Family Rooms for passengers
to relax comfortably with feet stretched out as if in a business class. If need
be, after prayer or between prayer times, one could lie down on the carpeted floor
of some of the prayer rooms.

The flight from Doha to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh,
was a much shorter one, nearly five hours long. The flight was full with
hundreds of Bangladeshi laborers returning home from their jobs in the Middle
East.

After arriving late in Dhaka by nearly an hour, past the
midnight, it was a grueling waiting for more than an hour before the luggage
eventually arrived on the carousel belts. My childhood friend Siddiqur Rahman
who was waiting since about 10:30 p.m. at the airport received me with a big
hug. I reached his home in the chic Gulshan area around 2 a.m. His wife had
left some food for us to eat, which we devoured quickly and then went to sleep.

The next morning after eating a hefty breakfast, Siddiq and
I went to visit some of our friends from BUET and ORCA. I was glad to attend a
meeting of the ORCA and see all the good works it has been doing, including
blood-drive inside Bangladesh. The next day, Siddiq dropped me at Mosharraf’s
office. The latter is a foremost expert on tea industry. He informed me that
Bangladesh, thanks to an ill-fated government decision, has become a net tea
importer, threatening the lives of tens of thousands of families who solely
rely on the industry to make a living. Many such decisions by the ruling
government seemed to be wrong and short-sighted, harming the interests of local
growers and businessmen.

Without any real opposition inside the parliament, such
issues that are directly related to people’s bread and butter (or dal-bhat) are
hardly discussed.

The road communication within and between towns and cities
is so bad that it takes at least twice the time for any trip. The highways are
full of ditches due mostly to heavy locomotive uses from India carrying goods. It
seemed that Bangladesh government is more interested in expanding roads and
rail tracks than repairing (or sustaining) such. Most of the major construction
jobs in the transport communication sector have been taken over by the Chinese
contractors who instead of doing the job firsthand have learned the easy way of
making money by sub-contracting all such jobs. As a result, less than half the
money is truly getting spent in such infrastructure developmental projects, the
remainder lost to the greedy Chinese businessmen and other middlemen. The
Bangladesh Army Engineering Corps, on the other hand, have done some outstanding
jobs in the construction front and are widely respected for their workmanship
and quality of job delivered. Rather than giving jobs to the Chinese and
outside contractors who are in the business of drying out the hard-earned
foreign currency and savings of Bangladesh the government would be better
advised to give priority to its local engineering groups who are more mindful
of their obligations and ties to the soil.

As I have witnessed before, traffic jam remains a major
problem faced in most big cities. I was reminded by my friends that Dhaka has a
capacity to handle some 200,000 cars on its roads, but it has more than a
million cars frequenting its roads now. And if one were to add another half a
million rickshaws, it is not difficult to understand the daily pains suffered
by commuters in cities like Dhaka. The traffic police force is poorly prepared
to handle such congestion problems. With lack of underpasses and overpasses for
the pedestrians to cross streets it is simply a nightmare to tackle such
issues. And add to that problem, the attitude of pedestrians who would rather not
use such alternatives considered longer than the riskier short-cuts that they had
gotten used to. Only the imposition of hefty fines by the traffic police can
probably remedy such chronic problems.

Trash collection remains a big problem in some of the major
cities, esp. the port city of Chittagong where I spent nearly 3 weeks of my
vacation time. I am told that while the city mayor is an honest guy he is less
effective as a city administrator than his highly corrupt predecessor; less
than 15% of the municipal job gets done now while under the former mayor who
would pocket 5 to 10 percent of such contract jobs, at least 80% of the
assigned money would be spent on the job.

So, here is a dilemma that many city dwellers like the
Chittagonians routinely face: what is preferred – an incompetent or ineffectual
administrator who is miserably failing in delivering the basic needs to his
residents or a competent and highly corrupt administrator who delivers results.
It is a sad, morally reprehensible choice, which many are forced to choose!

Bangladesh is now in the midst of its dry seasons with
hardly any rainfalls. Because of the open sewerage system in many cities,
mosquitoes breed abundantly and can be found almost everywhere even during
daytimes. There is nothing like mosquito extermination campaigns anymore to
relieve people’s sufferings.

A reading of any major newspaper in the country would give
one the overwhelming impression that the law and order situation is
deteriorating badly. More than half the news is about who got killed where and
how. It is really depressing!

The government has recently cracked down on vehicle owners
to check fitness. Such measures however are widely perceived as easy ways to
make some money for the government agencies and those involved. An ambassador
friend of mine told me that his car had to pay more than 55,000 Taka for the
fitness permit! Apparently, the permit is for all road-users, including
rickshaws, taxis and Tom-toms.

What struck me most was one such report about a tom-tom wala’s
death. The family-owned tom-tom was the only source of income for this person
who had to support a large family. When he was told that his tom-tom did not
meet fitness required by the government and that he could not use it any more
to earn his living, he suffered a heart attack and died on the spot.

I have since then pondered on this sad demise a number of
times. In the eyes of her many critics, the government in Bangladesh has
miserably failed to guarantee the basic necessities of life to most of its
citizens. It is wide perceived as a usurper who knows only to take and nothing
to give away. Its government agencies are full of corruption, and nothing gets
done without paying bribes. A building permit from CDA or RAJUK which cost Tk.
300 some three decades ago now costs at least Tk. 300,000. Is that the progress
Bangladesh is craving for?

Let me share a story to make the case here. A couple of
months ago, a police officer visited an elderly person in Chittagong who has
been wrongfully accused in a criminal case lodged by a land-grabber. When
talking with the elderly gentleman, the police officer presented a very gloomy
picture of corruption within the government sectors stating that corruption had
spread so widely that only less than half a percent of the people working in
the government sectors are not corrupt, i.e., a hefty 99.5% of the government
employees are utterly corrupt.So, this
elderly gentleman assumed that the police officer in charge of the inquiry was
one such rare (i.e., honest) individual who belonged to that 0.5% good-guy category.
It did not take too long for him to get a rude awakening when before leaving
the premise the officer demanded that for him to write a police report of his
innocence, the elderly gentleman must pay him a bribe of Taka 20,000. The sad
thing is even after the payment was made the police report did not surface
since the officer in-charge of that inquiry had transferred to another city. A
new officer came in who had to be paid bribe likewise.

Innocent citizens in Bangladesh are easy preys to such
government vultures and wolves who know no mercy and have no fear of their
accountability to people, or anyone including God!

In the economic ladder Bangladesh is considered a success
story with an emerging, vibrant and booming economy. However, the government
has very little, if any, to take credit for her success. It is the hard-working
people like that tom-tom wala who are making that difference in Bangladesh
against all the odds. It is the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs – males and females –
who put up long hours seven days a week who are behind the Bangladeshi economic
miracle. They refuse to be cowed down, defeated and fatigued by government
bureaucracy, which come in their way to rob and dispossess them.

What right does a government have to take the life of that
tom-tom wala who was making an honest living by driving his tom-tom on the
streets when the government has not done anything for him since he was born?

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About Me

I have a long history of a peaceful activist in my effort towards improving human rights and creating a just and equitable world. I have written extensively in the arena of humanity, global politics, social conscience and human rights since 1980, many of which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the Internet. I have tirelessly championed the cause of the disadvantaged, the poor and the forgotten here in Americas and abroad. Commenting on my articles, others have said, "His meticulously researched essays and articles combined with real human dimensions on the plight of the displaced peoples of Rohingya in Myanmar, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine, and American Muslims in the post-9/11 era have made him a singular important intellectual offering a sane voice with counterpoints to the shrill threats of the oppressors and the powerful. He offers a fresh and insightful perspective on a whole generation of a misunderstood and displaced people with little or no voice of their own." I have authored 13 books, 10 of which are now available through the Amazon.com.